Lamentation for the dead (Werner Helwig)

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The book Totenklage is the old work of the writer Werner Helwig .

content

The autobiographical text documents in diary-like notes the period of suffering and the miserable death of his wife Yvonne; the book is both mourning and self-accusation. Helwig's marriage lasted 38 years. The couple had promised each other not to be left alone in the hour of death. Now he experiences the long, terrible struggle and the passing of his wife on the tubes and tubes in the intensive care unit of the Geneva University Clinic . The last thing he sees of Yvonne is her pleading face; because when the doctors come to rounds, he hastily leaves the room, flees home and learns of his wife's death the next day. He cannot forgive himself for his behavior. On the day of his death he begins to keep his diary, leaves Yvonne's room untouched, tries to meet her in day and night dreams, recalls everything she has experienced and suffered and takes stock of her marriage. On the first anniversary of Yvonne's death, he finished his diary with the conclusion: “Yvonne was a secret. It remains a secret to me. "

Literary significance and literary criticism

In the last decade of his life, things had become very quiet around Werner Helwig, who had achieved a high level of awareness through his book Raubfischer in Hellas . When the Lamentation for the Dead appeared, the literary criticism was surprised and unanimously praised the book as a mature, very personal book of excellent speech, as a masterpiece and the book of his that would endure for the future. Joachim Günther called the book “a unique piece” not only in the life's work of this writer, but also in German literature in general, because there has never been a mourning of this kind: ... this beautiful, strong and honest documentation. German literature has been enriched by a small masterpiece with a big theme .

The literary critic Werner Ross wrote about Helwig's language in this book that it was so artistic, so beautifully rhythmic, so carefully choosing the appropriate word as Carossa back then , but he found some meditations, the brooding excursions into Yvonne's no- man's-land , a little questionable . Urs Bugmann saw in his remarks in the NZZ in Helwig's carefully observing and honest self-awareness something that not only touches the reader, but also affects him and concerns him, and for Peter Jokostra , Helwig's merciless process with himself is - quite in the sense of Kafka .

output

The first edition of the book was published in 1984 by Suhrkamp (Frankfurt / Main) by Insel Verlag . The linen edition is still in the publisher's program. ISBN 978-3-458-14176-1

Quote

“It was suddenly clear to me that Yvonne had erased a lot of cheerfulness from me with her unrealizable, because unpredictable expectation. Under the pressure of their demands, I actually only got as serious as I am today. We seldom drifted in a soothing current of cheerful carelessness. "

- Werner Helwig

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Joachim Günther : Lament for the Dead . In: New German Issues . 184. pp. 824-825. 4/1984 ISSN  0028-3142
  2. ↑ Werner Ross : The continuing loneliness. Helwig's poetic 'lament for the dead' for his wife . In: FAZ from September 25, 1984
  3. ↑ Peter Jokostra : Werner Helwigs "Totenklage" / Chronicle of suffering and self-accusation within the chaos . In: Rheinische Post from September 29, 1984
  4. ↑ Text edition page 108

literature

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